I have been toying with doing a few figures for the Estonian War of Independence. This was sparked off by a trip to Tallinn when I saw a British Naval flag hanging in a church and did a bit of research into what it was doing there. It turns out it was given to the people of Tallinn by the Royal Navy during the War of Independence.
I am just beginning to read about the conflict, and I am sure there are people on the forum who are much more knowledgeable than me. It seems an fascinating period of history and one that can offer lots to wargamers. For starters there are several factions involved- As well as the Estonians and the Bolsheviks, there were White Russians, Finnish and Danish Volunteers. Added to this there were Germans who the allies had allowed to continue to keep their weapons after WW1 on the condition they fought the Bolsheviks, but who ended up fighting the Estonians too. All of this offers some interesting opportunities to wargamers.
I did a bit of research and found that the British supplied a lot of uniforms to the Estonians, as well as some machine guns. This was rather handy as I had a couple of dozen of the old Musketeer Miniatures Early war British in my lead mountain that I bought years ago for VBCW but never got round to painting. I also had some west Wind Productions German heads with side caps from their Berlin or Bust separate heads system. This morning I decided to have a go at putting them together. I know the cap isn't 100% right but it is a damn sight better that I could sculpt myself. The only other 'sticking point' was that I had read that the Estonians were short of backpacks- and all my Brits had backpacks- so I decided to trim off the backpack and redo the webbing straps with green stuff. Now I am not the best sculptor in the world- but I hope that I can cover up the crappy green-stuffing with a half decent paint job.
Anyway- without further ado- here are my experiments at Estonians in British Army Uniforms .
and here is my reference photo...
I welcome any feedback you can give. I would also welcome any useful links or lists of good reading material (in English) that I could use.
Also what colour were the British supplied uniforms? Were they the same colour as the normal British ones?
February 27, 2011, 12:55:55 PM